About the authors

John Hellier

The original 60s mod around town, I was born in Romford, Essex and spent my formative years playing drums in various bands in and around East London but it was with my writing that I found my niche not only as editor of the worldwide respected Small Faces (and related) magazine Darlings Of Wapping Wharf Launderette, which goes out worldwide to 5000 readers, but also as a free-lance writer with major music monthlies such as Mojo, Uncut, Loaded and Record Collector. My works also appear on numerous CDs/DVDs for all the major record companies. The first Small Faces book was back in 1996 and was a collaboration with Terry Rawlings and Keith Badman called “Quite Naturally” but my biggest triumph in this field is the Steve Marriott biography “All Too Beautiful” co-written with Paolo Hewitt and published in 2004 by Helter Skelter books. A labour of love, 77 interviews and three years graft but something I’m very proud of. A third edition of this highly acclaimed book will be available later this year. A third book co-written with Paul Weller entitled “Here Come The Nice” was published in late 2005 and spent many months in the Music book best sellers. 2016 saw the Griffiths Publishing release of the Pete Wilky/John Hellier collaboration…”I’m The Face” the official Peter Meaden Story. On the Promotions side I’ve staged prestige Memorial Shows for Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott at the Royal Albert Hall and London Astoria respectively, featuring some of the biggest names in the business, as well as annual Small Faces Conventions for the past 20 years. There is also Wapping Wharf Records which is run in conjunction with the Steve Marriott estate and has released 9 Steve Marriott rarities albums in the past 10 years. Many television appearances including Melvyn Bragg’s The Southbank Show and BBC4s Soul Brittannia Series in which I was also Executive Producer. Currently working with scriptwriter Nina Gestetner on a full length film project covering Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott, this is following on from the successful short Marriott movie “Midnight Of My Life” currently doing the Film Festival circuit worldwide.

Paolo Hewitt

Paolo Hewitt definitely “was there then.” For four crucial years he was at the centre of Oasis’s inner circle. Working as the band’s DJ he saw first hand the incendiary power of the original line-up at era-defining shows in front of tens of thousands of people. Paolo also had exclusive access to the unfolding dramas as their fame exploded, in dressing rooms and in recording studios, watching moments of creative success and also familial tension. Written from that insider’s perspective, his two accounts of life with Oasis are the definitive telling of the Oasis story. Getting High, first published in 1997 and newly available as an e-book, takes the band’s story from childhood to Knebworth. The Be Here Now world tour is chronicled in Paolo’s second Oasis book, Forever the People, and finds life within the inner circle to have changed greatly.